


Bellatrix Doesn’t Cry

by SilverShortyyy



Series: Not Even Hell Can Vouch For Us [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Blackcest, F/M, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 17:04:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13640622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShortyyy/pseuds/SilverShortyyy
Summary: She throws tantrums. And cackles. And rages like the most terrifying storm ever concocted in wizard history. She breaks mirrors and shatters windows and laughs, laughs like the madwoman she is.But she doesn’t cry.And then came the Dog Star.





	Bellatrix Doesn’t Cry

Draco didn’t think she was capable of something that sounded so human.

She was known, after all, for her mad cackle, the crazy way in which she laughs at the least amusing things, At least, least amusing to Draco. To her, he thinks, those things are the most hilarious, the most laughable ideas that the universe could ever come up with. Madness, really; insanity.

Bellatrix Lestrange was crazy, through and through.

But how, then, is she able to make such a human sound?

Narcissa remembers hearing her sister cry like this only one other time. Every other time Bellatrix cried, there would be broken mirrors and howling, howling like an animal in pain and mad cackling like a hag about to cast an evil curse. But then, one night, she had cried just like this.

Soft, heartbroken sobs. Quiet pleas and silent grudges. Pain with no madness, anger at the insanity of the world.

Lucius wanted her out, but he couldn’t demand that. She was not only the Dark Lord’s right hand, but also Narcissa’s sister and Draco’s aunt. Draco may not have known her long, but they were still bound by blood. Though, Lucius would not blame his son if Draco wanted her out, too.

Those being said, even Lucius was shocked to hear Bellatrix sobbing. Just sobbing. Crying. With no mad cackle, with no shouted vows, with no shattered windows or broken mirrors.

Just crying.

“Cissa, not to judge, but,” and Lucius hesitates, but gulps down his pride. He’s asking his beloved wife, after all. “Is your sister really just—“

“Crying? Yes.

“This only happened one other time, you know.”

“When?”

Narcissa usually never said his name but no matter how they would deny it, he still mattered to them more than even Bellatrix would know how to show.

“The night Sirius left.”

Lucius didn't expect the softness in Narcissa’s voice.

Draco didn’t expect his mother to say the name at all.

* * *

It hurt.

So much.

The night is suddenly so vivid again especially with her eyes closed. It was as if she was back to being twenty-four years old and nearly pulled down to sanity, his lips and his touch just enough to make her kneel and give up her madness.

He was insane like her. Intense like her. Out of his mind and reckless and strong-willed like her.

And he knew how to touch her, how to kiss her, how to _love_ her.

She was twenty-four and lay down on the sheets, panting and satisfied and _happy_ for once in her life, pure and unbridled happiness etching itself into her veins as if to dig up and throw away all the bitterness she had been injecting into her blood.

She was twenty-four when she woke up smelling him, but noticing the window wide open with the curtains streaming out of it.

His side of the bed was still warm, and she could still feel him touching her and whispering sweet nothings into her ear.

He did say that night that he would love her like it was the last time. And Maybe because it was. Maybe because it was the last time he planned to ever come near her ever again.

She remembered dismissing the little bits of gossip the wind blew into her ear, bits that told her he hated her behind her back. She remembered hearing that he thought she was disgusting, that she was evil and insane and a bad taste in his mouth.

She normally didn’t hurt.

She normally didn’t feel anything from what other people say.

But that night, she felt those things rip her soul like tattered curtains, the edges set aflame enough to be obviously charred.

She was twenty-four and she scooted over to his side of the bed, feeling the warmth he left behind. She could still smell the faint scent of him on it, the faint scent of his shampoo and his soap and _him_ that she doubted she’ll ever get to smell again.

And then a memory had shot through her.

_“I’m leaving at dawn.”_

_Her breath holds._

_His heart beats._

_His breathing is normal._

_**She knows what he means.** _

_She isn’t even trying to deny it._

_He doesn’t move off her until they both see the smallest wink of dawn at her window. She knows he isn’t even going to take his stuff, because he already has stuff where he’s going. He has enough money if he needs it. He has friends and women and **men**. But she? She only has him, him, him—_

_“I’m never coming back, you know.” He says at the doorway._

_“I know.” She whispers._

She was twenty-four when she had her first heartbreak, when she first really felt her heart getting ripped out of her chest. It was as if her heartstrings were getting cut fiber by fiber, and she felt every little jab and every little prod.

She was twenty-four when she first really cried, and some days she thinks it was pathetic that she cried over him.

On days like this, though, when she wakes up with that memory fresh in her mind, she wonders how that memory has survived through all the probing and Death Eater business and, especially, Azkaban.

Then she remembers that Dementors feed on happy memories.

Sitting on her bed right now in her brother-in-law’s inherited mansion, she highly doubts the night Sirius first broke her heart would ever be a happy memory.

On days like this, she remembers how it isn’t so pathetic that she cried over Sirius and that it hurt.

So _fucking_ much.


End file.
